If you’ve ever had a referral source ask whether you handle Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome and felt your answer was technically true but unsatisfying, you’re in the right place. The path from ‘I can do it’ to ‘I’m the person to call’ is more concrete than it looks.
This is for divorce financial coaches who are tired of generic ‘develop your practice’ advice and want specifics about Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome specifically.
The economics of Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome engagements for divorce financial coaches usually favor flat-fee or tiered-fee structures over hourly billing. The work is well-defined enough to scope cleanly, and clients usually prefer predictable costs. Coaches who develop reliable scoping templates can produce consistent margins where hourly-billed coaches absorb variable amounts of scope creep.
The first meeting
Document the intake. Either contemporaneous notes you keep in the file or a follow-up summary email to the client. Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome engagements involve enough small decisions across long timelines that working from memory six months in produces errors.
The right intake length for a Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome matter is usually 60 to 90 minutes, conducted in person or by video. Shorter intakes miss the depth required for the engagement to be properly scoped; longer intakes overwhelm the client. Many practitioners follow up the intake conversation with a written summary the client confirms before the engagement letter is sent. For deeper reference, see IRS Publication 504 (Divorced or Separated Individuals).
The body of the engagement
Analytical work during the middle phase often produces interim findings that affect the engagement scope. A finding the client didn’t anticipate may open new questions; a finding consistent with expectations may close lines of inquiry. The engagement letter should anticipate these scope adjustments and provide a path for handling them without requiring full re-papering.
Communication discipline during the middle phase prevents most of the problems that show up at the deliverable. Practitioners who send the client weekly or biweekly written updates — even short ones — maintain trust and surface issues early. Practitioners who go silent during the analytical work leave the client to imagine what might be happening, which is rarely productive.
What gets produced
The deliverable for a Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome engagement is the work product everyone will reference for years afterward. It needs to be defensible (your analysis can withstand scrutiny), readable (the client and any non-specialist can understand it), and complete (it addresses what the engagement was scoped to address). The deliverable usually takes 20-40% of the engagement hours; underestimating this consistently produces matters that run over time.
Most Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome deliverables follow a consistent format that practitioners refine over multiple matters. An executive summary at the top. Background and scope. Methodology. Findings. Conclusions and recommendations. Appendices with supporting documentation. Practitioners who maintain a template they refine engagement by engagement produce stronger deliverables faster than those who reinvent the format each time.
Matter-specific considerations
High-conflict matters require different communication and documentation discipline than cooperative ones. In high-conflict Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome engagements, every communication may eventually be reviewed by opposing counsel or a judge; the practitioner needs to write as if the matter will be litigated, even when it won’t be.
Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome engagements vary along a few predictable dimensions: client sophistication (institutional client vs. unsophisticated individual), case complexity (single straightforward question vs. multiple intertwined issues), opposing-side cooperation (cooperative vs. adversarial), and timeline pressure (negotiated timeline vs. court-imposed deadlines). Each dimension affects how the standard engagement pattern needs to adjust.
Practitioners who want to make Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome a meaningful part of their work should commit to the long timeline. The first year produces little visible return. The third year shifts. By year five, the work and the referrals look noticeably different.
How VennBoard fits in
Practitioners who handle Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome repeatedly find that the back-office infrastructure is the difference between a practice that scales and one that absorbs the practitioner. VennBoard provides the structured workspace that lets you focus on the substantive work — the part that actually compounds.
For divorce financial coaches ready to see how VennBoard supports Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome engagements, visit VennBoard.com.
Further reading
Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement
IRS Publication 504 (Divorced or Separated Individuals)